This invention relates to a new and distinctive variety of citrus tree and its fruits including a variegated lemon-lime hybrid, discovered by me in a cultivated grove on my property located in the City of Homestead, in the County of Dade, and the State of Florida. This lemon-lime variety may be referred to as its cultivar name Variegated Lemonine (Variegated Lemon.times.Lime) which was discovered as a chance, natural limb mutation that originated from a lemon-lime tree which is the subject of U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,292, on my property as set forth above, but distinguishable therefrom by having fruit and foliage which are chimeral or variegated in appearance.
Careful botanical and horticultural study of this new tree and its fruits confirms that it exhibits the kind of variegation that arises from the type of bud-variation known as a white-over-green periclinal chimera, and that it represents a new variety of lemon-lime hybrid. My new variegated lemon-lime tree is propagated vegetatively and I have propagated it by air layering, and budding on commonly employed root stocks therefor. The subject lemon-lime tree provides a novel ornamental pot plant or door yard tree and further provides a novel juice producing acid citrus fruit, the juice of which can be used fresh, frozen or processed in any manner comparable to the various ways in which lemon or lime juice are processed and further wherein the variegation of both the foliage and the fruits provides novel and aesthetically pleasing plants.